The Book of Poison Ivy (Pamela Isley) (The May Queen)

[IAmBatman]

I don’t *think* we have any uncapped friendly bonuses that work off wounds. I guess Doctor Fate JL could do some sneaky stuff?

[Arkham]

Originally Posted by MrNobody

Having just seen Upside-Down Man get absolutely massacred by Wolverine, 15L and 4D doesn’t seem that tough, yeah.

The life-adding version definitely feels more mechanically exciting at this point in our game. (Life manipulation is a pretty new mechanic.) I kinda like the idea of a Plant Construct that protects her, but I don’t know if you want to spend time to do another one.

That would still keep that “final boss” feel but make it a bit more of an effort for Ivy’s player.

I'm not opposed to doing a 150 pointer, giving you a little more army build variety. Any ideas on a figure for it though?

Design wise, we'd probably go with something like this:

NAME = OVERGROWTH GUARDIAN

SPECIES = PLANT
UNIQUENESS = UNCOMMON HERO
CLASS = CONSTRUCT
PERSONALITY = WILD

SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 6

LIFE = 6

MOVE = 4
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 3
DEFENSE = 3

POINTS = 150

JUNGLE PLANT
Whenever a special power on an Army Card refers to a Jungle Piece, it refers to this Overgrowth Guardian as well.

OVERGROWTH 15
Anytime an opponent would begin the movement of an adjacent small or medium figure, you may first roll the 20-sided die. If you roll 15 or higher, that figure's movement immediately ends and subtracts 3 from its Attack number for the remainder of its turn.

GUARDIAN OF THE GREEN
Anytime an adjacent Evergreen Tree, Jungle Piece, or figure that has the Plant Animation special power would receive one or more wounds, you may instead have this Overgrowth Guardian receive those wounds.

SUPERSTRENGTH

Originally Posted by LordVenoc

Is there a balancing concern around such a high life number? I know its been brought up before with stuff like the cat characters having 9 life, so just wanted to make sure here as I can't recall.

If there isn't really one outside just "cheap wound sink" it might even be something to give her two life per plant. I think something like that can hit the spot to make it feel like more of a waste to focus on her and push you toward the plants.

Not sure if that'd be an issue or not. It was a thought I had, and you'd need to invest in all Plants to jack it up anyway so I can't imagine she's going to be a premiere wound soak for others(not sure how that'd work anyway).

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

I don’t *think* we have any uncapped friendly bonuses that work off wounds. I guess Doctor Fate JL could do some sneaky stuff?

Yeah, that'd be the most problematic one I'd imagine. Could go Event Hero for this one to avoid if we went that route.

[MrNobody]

The Thing is pretty theoretically scary with her, but that takes a lot to set up.

[Arkham]

We could try a couple smaller tweaks like:

LIFE = 5

MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 4
DEFENSE = 3

POINTS = 245

ROOTED TOGETHER
For each Unique Plant figure you control, add 1 to Poison Ivy's Life number, and 1 to her Defense number if it is also adjacent to her.

NATURE'S NOURISHMENT
After an Order Marker is revealed on any card, you may reveal an "X" Order Marker on this card. If you do, until the next Order Marker is revealed, Plants in your army add 3 to their Attack and Defense numbers, and to any 20-sided die rolls made for special powers on their cards.

THE MAY QUEEN
After revealing an Order Marker on this card, before taking a turn with Poison Ivy, you may either move 23 Plant figures you control or take a turn with 1 Plant card you control. If you do, you may not take any additional turns other than with Ivy.

PLANT ANIMATION 12
After moving and instead of attacking, roll the 20-sided die for all opponents' figures within two spaces of an Evergreen Tree or Jungle Piece that is within 6 spaces of Poison Ivy, one at a time. If you roll 12 or higher, the figure receives one wound.

If we drop her Defense by 1 to 3(same as the previous 2 Ivys), then that gives her the potential to up her Defense as well, making her less of an ideal priority/target for the opponent.

Then, an optional tweak beyond that would be to raise the movement option in The May Queen to 3 figures instead of 2(I was having a hard time moving most of the Tree Golems out of the start zone before she got taken out).

That would theoretically be enough to make her feel more like a boss being protected by minions, that the opponent is forced to weed out, to make her more vulnerable.

[MrNobody]

Could she teleport plants to her instead of moving them? That feels much more Ivy to me than a bunch of golems walking around. And would that help or hurt the army as a whole?

[Arkham]

Teleport to her would be half nice, but then not being able to move them beyond where she stands, would hurt it as she of course wants to stay back to some degree. So instead of moving 2/3, she could place them on a space within 3 spaces or something. Which is what the Vines already do themselves.

That said, I think her controlling Plant Golems and them lumbering around is typically how they're portrayed, not just sprouting up each time they move. The vines are the ones that make sense to sprout up each time, hence why that's how they work.

[MrNobody]

What media/stories are we basing the golems on?

Tbh, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Ivy with humanoid plant monsters. Haven’t wanted to ask because I don’t really have any issue with her bossing around plant monsters but my experience with her has always been with vines/fly traps, stuff like that.

Your points about gameplay make a lot sense though.

[IAmBatman]

There's these guys from Knightfall #7

[Arkham]

It's typically vines and Venus flytraps of sorts, yeah, but occasionally she uses other types of monsters.

From Solomon Grundy #3:

A massive animated tree sprouts from nearby greenery, reaching out with thorny vines and branches to rescue its master. Barbed limbs wrap around Gold's throat and body, but the black evil and decay of Solomon Grundy sends the tree recoiling in horror!

From Injustice 2:


From DC Universe Online:
https://dcuniverseonline.fandom.com/..._Plant_Hybrids



And a few instances in BTAS:

YouTube (Short URL)

7:24
13:13

I'm sure there's more, but you get the idea.

[Arkham]

Ok, so here's what I'm thinking... The issue at hand is that Ivy is more of a worthwhile target to go after than her minions. She's easier to wound than the Tree Golems as-is, so if an enemy has the range, disengage abilities, or can risk the LEAs, she's absolutely a bigger win to take head on than dealing with the others outside of the Vines, since they're the easiest to take out.

So, with that said, I think these tweaks would help get everything in a more ideal place:

NAME = TREE GOLEM

SPECIES = PLANT
UNIQUENESS = UNCOMMON HERO
CLASS = CONSTRUCT
PERSONALITY = WILD

SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 3

MOVE = 4
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 3
DEFENSE = 63

POINTS = 100

JUNGLE PLANT
Whenever a special power on an Army Card refers to a Jungle Piece, it refers to this Tree Golem as well.

THORNY BARK 15
You may roll the 20-sided die immediately after a figure:
• moves onto a space adjacent to this Tree Golem;
• ends its movement on a space adjacent to this Tree Golem; or
• is attacked by this Tree Golem's normal attack.
If you roll 15 or higher, that figure receives a wound. You may not roll the 20-sided die against the same figure more than once a turn.

ORGANIC REGENERATION
At the end of each round, remove one Wound Marker from this card. If this Tree Golem is on a water space at the end of the round, remove an additional Wound Marker from this card.

PLANT REGROWTH 15
For the entire game, at the end of each round, you may roll the 20-sided die once for each destroyed Tree Golem on this card. If you roll 15 or higher, place that Tree Golem on any empty space adjacent to a figure you control with the Plant Animation special power, if possible.

SUPERSTRENGTH

Dropping the Tree Golem's Defense from 6 to 3 will make them more worthwhile to try to eliminate. Then, getting rid of Organic Regeneration(didn't come into play much in testing as you'd usually see it fall if focused on) in favor of re-using Plant Regrowth from the Animated Vines.

Additionally, we make the suggested tweaks to Ivy:

LIFE = 56

MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 43
DEFENSE = 43

POINTS = 245

ROOTED TOGETHER
For each Unique Plant figure you control, add 1 to Poison Ivy's Life number and, add 1 to her Defense number if it is adjacent to her.

NATURE'S NOURISHMENT
After an Order Marker is revealed on any card, you may reveal an "X" Order Marker on this card. If you do, until the next Order Marker is revealed, Plants in your army add 3 to their Attack and Defense numbers, and to any 20-sided die rolls made for special powers on their cards.

THE MAY QUEEN
After revealing an Order Marker on this card, before taking a turn with Poison Ivy, you may either move 23 Plant figures you control or take a turn with 1 Plant card you control. If you do, you may not take any additional turns other than with Ivy.

PLANT ANIMATION 12
After moving and instead of attacking, roll the 20-sided die for all opponents' figures within two spaces of an Evergreen Tree or Jungle Piece that is within 6 spaces of Poison Ivy, one at a time. If you roll 12 or higher, the figure receives one wound.

This should mean that you can still target Ivy, but doing so is at a lower chance you wound her vs. trying to break down her Life and Defenses first by targeting her weaker minions which are more guaranteed kills. Which should accomplish the boss battle w/ minions feel. Then, when she's weak you try to land some hits before she potentially regrows some minions back to replenish some of her Life and Defenses.

The upping to moving of 3 for the May Queen, allows her to mobilize her minions quicker, swarming enemies or building up her defenses. It also just makes easy head space with the #3 being the common number throughout the designs. They all have 3 Defense, she and the Golem have 3 attack, she can add 3 to their d20 and Attack/Defense, there are 3 Vines in the squad etc.

It's not full proof, but I think your average army is going to have a harder time just going after her first. Someone like Superman and the like can still likely take it to her head on and be effective, but I think that's reasonable to have the powerhouses attempt to outpower her.

I will run some games again with those tweaks and see how that feels in comparison.

[IAmBatman]

Seems like it's worth exploring. I like that you still *can* target her, it's just pretty tough if you haven't done some lawn maintenance first.

[MrNobody]

Looks cool!